‘These disclosures are not just an attack on American foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community,’ she said.

Her comments came after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad branded the leaks, which reported widespread antagonism toward Iran from Arab Gulf states, a US plot to destabilise his country.

He accused Washington of playing ‘an intelligence and psychological war game’ but insisted that Iran was friends with its regional neighbours.

However, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the memos were clear proof the Arab world agreed with Israel’s view that Iran and its nuclear programme was the prime Middle East threat.

Other world leaders who were personally criticised also hit back. Silvio Berlusconi – who was accused of hosting ‘wild parties’ – wrote the comments off as a plot to oust him and noted the cables had been published in the world’s ‘left-wing’ press.

‘I don’t frequent these so-called “wild parties” and I don’t even know what they are,’ he said.

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, was described as playing Robin to prime minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman but a spokesman for Mr Medvedev said comparisons to ‘fictional Hollywood heroes hardly deserve official comment’.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry joined the condemnation, saying the leaks were an ‘irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents’ while Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called them ‘unhelpful and untimely’.